by Michele Hauf
A punch to his gut sent him flying. Vail landed on the tarmac, stumbling but still on two feet. A glance revealed that Lyric was keeping out of the way, peeking around the corner. He wished she had listened to him and vacated the alley.
The sidhe’s wings snapped out like crisp leather sails. Sheer green and veined in violet, Vail noted the serrated bone edges. Now those were the weapons he needed to worry about. A wingtip through his heart would prove as effective as a wooden stake.
The sidhe spun, slashing the air with his wings. Vail dodged and rolled, knocking the sidhe off his feet. A wingtip caught him across the chest, opening his shirt and slicing flesh.
“You bleed red, longtooth,” the sidhe remarked. “Heh. Nasty bloodsucker.” He spit onto Vail’s chest. “Give me what I want, and I’ll make this easy on you.”
“Why do you want the woman?” Vail kicked, clocking the sidhe’s face with his heel. The wraith’s head snapped, but he came right back to position.
“For the prize,” he growled. “She’s worth a lot dead.”
“Who put the price on her head? Why?”
Vail didn’t see the punch coming. Blood pooled in his mouth and spilled down his throat. And the punches continued, pummeling his chest until he couldn’t breathe. He managed to swing up, and ground his fist into his aggressor’s jaw. The sidhe screamed as the iron rings Vail wore burned into his flesh.
Jaw smoking, the wraith growled and spit. “That little bit of iron means nothing.” He slashed forward a wing, catching Vail across the chest, and whipped him through the air. He landed on the tarmac and something poked his shoulder. The crumpled balcony railing.
The sidhe raced toward the brick building, ran up the side of it and, once at the top, flipped over backward.
Vail grabbed a piece of railing, thankful it was long and straight, and came up swinging toward the wraith’s legs. He swept out his left arm, iron bar hooked along it and tucked under his elbow. It connected with the falling wraith and upset his intended attack.
The enemy quickly rolled upright, recovering. He acknowledged Vail’s weapon with a growl, and charged. Iron clanked against horned armor, putting back the wraith but not stopping him. He charged Vail over and over, and each time, Vail successfully detoured him. The quarterstaff had always been his weapon of choice. He was virtually undefeatable when wielding it.
Suddenly the sidhe was not there.
Lyric screamed. The wraith held her with an arm about her neck.
“Go ahead,” Vail said, standing with the bar held defensively, “break her neck. It won’t kill her.”
Without pause, the sidhe twisted Lyric’s neck and dropped her, lifeless, at his feet. He delivered a toothy snarl to Vail.
Bloody Herne. He hadn’t expected the bastard would do it.
Lyric lay unmoving, her head twisted to the side.
Was she dead? Vampire death required a stake, and some had to have their heads cut off to die. Broken bones always mended quickly. Even a broken neck—unless he’d severed her spinal cord. Hell. What had he been thinking to challenge the sidhe to do such a thing?
Something stabbed Vail in the heart, and it wasn’t the worm wraith’s weapon. It squeezed and compressed until he yelled out a banshee cry and lunged for the sidhe. He shoved the creature by the shoulders against the tangled iron railing. Vail felt a metal bar stab into his gut, cutting through skin. He shuffled away.
The wraith hung impaled on a spike. Didn’t matter how strong or powerful the thing was, iron was any sidhe’s kryptonite.
The sidhe’s limbs shot out as if being drawn and quartered, and his green eyes beamed. Its iridescent sheen began to glow vividly, and then, the body dropped limply and shimmered to a green dust, leaving behind only a powder of evidence the faery had walked the mortal realm.
Vail slapped a hand to his bleeding gut. It would heal.
But would a broken neck heal?
“Lyric?” He lunged to Lyric and lifted her into his arms. Her body draped limply across his knees and chest. “Lyric, wake up!”
Her neck was loose, broken from the spine. He held her head carefully, hoping the bones would heal. They had to. “You can’t be dead. I told him to do it. I didn’t mean it. Lyric, don’t let this be real. I need you.”
His heart pounded. He sucked in a reedy breath, gasping. He’d never needed anyone.
“Lyric?” How to revive a possibly dead vampire?
He’d seen a television show featuring a swimmer reviving a drowning friend by breathing air into their lungs.
Vail pressed his mouth over Lyric’s and blew in. The breath came out her nose and dusted his cheek. He pressed her nostrils shut and breathed again. Her chest rose. He did it again, and again.
This wouldn’t work. She hadn’t drowned. She was broken! But he had to try, so he continued. Breathe in, followed by her involuntary exhalation. And repeat.
Suddenly he heard the bones snap. Her neck jerked. The body in his arms reanimated. She sucked in air and clutched his head. Huffing and sitting up, she looked about to orient herself, then stared into his eyes. Her pale blue irises grew wet with unspilled tears. “You told him to break my neck!”
“I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry, but it didn’t kill you.”
“Have you ever had your neck broken?” She fitted her hands about his neck but was too weak to squeeze. “You bastard. Get away from me.”
Vail sat back. He’d saved them from the vicious sidhe warrior. And they should not be sitting in the open, waiting for the next sidhe to come along to claim the prize offered for Lyric’s head.
“We can’t stay here.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Lyric.” He caressed her hair, but she pulled away from him. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how else it could have gone. He would have killed you one way or another. I was trying to find out who put a price on your head.”
“Where is that ugly faery?”
“He’s gone. I impaled him on an iron bar.”
She scrambled from him and stood, wobbling and clutching the tattered plastic supermarket bag as if it were a valued treasure. Her eyes shuffled over the faint shimmer below the tangled railing.
When he moved to help her, she put up her palm. “Back off, Vail. I’m not sure what I think about you anymore.”
He hung his head. “You have every right to hate me. But you can hate me and allow me to get you to safety at the same time. Someone wants you dead.”
“This is starting to freak me out,” she said, nervously rubbing her neck. “I thought I’d be getting away, starting a new life, you know? Hell, I just wanted to join the circus! Now I’ve got insane faeries chasing after me, and probably the whole Seelie nation, not to mention that bastard, Zett.”
She exhaled and her watery eyes found his. “I’m scared.”
Vail inhaled and nodded to her seeking gaze. He could feel her fear, and he didn’t like that it curdled his blood and made it sit cold and sluggish in his veins. This gorgeous woman should never fear.
“I vow, as long as you stay near me, Lyric, I will protect you with my life.”
“Why?”
“Why? You’re not supposed to ask why, you should accept—”
“What stake do you have in protecting me? What’s in it for you?”
Finding his father. But there was another reason now. For some reason he couldn’t stand back and let her do this on her own. “Lyric. Please. I’m trying to do the hero thing here.”
“I get that. As distorted as your version of heroic is.” She rubbed her neck, wincing. “But it would make me feel better to know what’s going on in your faery-dusted brain right now.”
“I want to protect you.” He gripped her by the shoulders, but immediately loosened his hold. No, he would not harm her or give her reason to think he might. She was too precious. “Because it feels right. More right than anything I’ve felt before.”
She lifted her chin. Her cheek was smeared with dirt. A tear on the
shoulder of her dress revealed dirt-smeared skin. She deserved to be put on a pedestal and not blindly worshipped, but rather cherished.
“You think more will come after us?” she asked.
“They will not relent. The Unseelies will seek us, as well as those unaligned, like the worm wraith. And the more we delay, the faster the Seelie court learns of the missing gown. We can’t stand around and let the next sidhe lock on to us like a sniper’s scope. If it’s you they’re looking for, we need to get to my place and fix you up.” He touched the bag, and took it from her when she relented. “Come with me, will you?”
She slipped her hand into his and he hated that he could feel her shake. Lyric tugged him to a stop. “You promise to protect me?”
He slid a hand through her hair and bent to kiss her. It was bittersweet, a kiss for the fucked-up hero who would sacrifice his lover’s neck to win the fight. He didn’t deserve her trust, or this kiss.
“I promise. But I will give you the chance to walk away right now. My methods are unorthodox. I don’t know the rules, and so can’t play by them. I’m in this for myself, Lyric. First and foremost.”
“I suspected as much. But you’re not going to tell me why.”
“Can’t. It’s too personal.”
She nodded. “I can relate to that. You need to trust me to let me into your heart.”
“No, I—”
But she didn’t wait for him to summon an excuse. “You promise you won’t let anyone snap my neck again?”
“No harm will come to you. I will ram my heart onto the stake myself, if it should come to that.”
“It had better not come to that.” She sighed and tugged him into a walk. “Fine. We’re in this together, enemy mine.”
CHAPTER TEN
LYRIC TUGGED THE towel from her wet hair and pulled a thick hank around to inspect because the hotel room mirror wasn’t going to help. Her pale tresses had been obliterated, to be replaced with dull, dumpy brown. She’d refused to let Vail help her put the color in, which had proved a challenge, keeping it off her skin. She was still angry with him over allowing her to die.
Had she been dead? Her neck had been broken. She’d lost a few minutes of perception. What if the worm wraith had staked her in that time?
She eased a hand around her neck for the dozenth time. Head still on, so that meant something. And Vail had beat off the bad guy. An attacker, she sensed, who had been much stronger than Vail, and determined to kill them both to get what he wanted—her. She should be thankful.
She was thankful. For the most part.
The sidhe had been after her because someone had put a price on her head? Apparently, she’d escaped her deadly fate only to step even closer to it.
She should tell Vail everything. He would know how to help her. Or it was possible the truth would piss him off and, tired of her danger, he’d hand her over to Zett himself.
She couldn’t risk that happening.
Vail waited out in the main room. The small one-bed, fifty-euro-a-night heap that he’d rented in the twentieth arrondissement was far from city center. And far from the circle of what she knew. Lyric was a city girl and moved and existed where she was comfortable, which was within the circle of the first six or seven quarters.
You really need to get out more.
“You can’t even fake a kidnapping right.” She pulled out the hem of the dowdy T-shirt she’d bought to wear for this procedure. It was covered with dark dribbles of hair color. “I can’t believe I didn’t plan that Charish would send someone after me so quickly.”
It was supposed to go smoothly. She had got out of the house, stashed the gown and contacted Leo about finding someone to remove the mark and, well, then…
But when she’d been ready to throw in the towel, so to speak—she tossed the color-stained towel into the cracked bathtub—Vail had stepped up, grabbed her hand and offered the support she’d needed.
In a manner.
Why? What did he see in her? It couldn’t be anything beyond the great sex. Though when he’d grabbed her hand to walk into the store earlier she’d felt special, as if she belonged to him and he was hers. And how weird was that? Just from hand-holding?
“You’re not a teenager anymore, Lyric. Men want women for more than holding hands.” She sighed. “But I’ll take it for what it was. Which felt pretty cool at the time.” And so what if her heart still acted like a teenage girl?
Vail had his own reasons for pursuing the answers in this case. He seemed to know Zett. Likely he did if he’d lived in Faery. Was Vail’s keeping her in hand some kind of vengeance against the faery lord?
She didn’t want to know, didn’t want the betrayal. Vail was the first male vampire Lyric had truly got along with, despite his obvious dislike for their breed. The fact he was an amazing lover was awesome, but that he’d developed the need to protect her meant even more. No one had ever stepped up the way he had for her, not even her brother, Leo.
“How’s it look?” he called.
Lyric considered pulling off the T-shirt and walking into the bedroom bare breasted so he’d be distracted from the awful hair, but decided it was time she acted as smart as he thought she was.
Vail lay stretched across the bed on his stomach. He whistled when Lyric sashayed in and fluffed at the miserable hair. “Not too shabby.”
“Shabby is the perfect word for this.” She sat beside him, her shoulders sagging. “This is awful. Do I have to have this color forever?”
“Just until we figure out the secret deal and why Zett wants you dead. I think it’s pretty.”
“It looks like mud.”
“Lyric, the color of your hair has little to do with my perception of you. Nor do your dazzling white teeth, or those bright blue eyes. Or your gorgeous full breasts and soft, sexy skin.” He rolled to his back and slid a palm over her heart. “This matters, though.”
“Since when did you become all mushy and romantic? Two days ago you wanted to bag my ass and haul me back to Mommy. The sex can’t be that good.”
“The sex is beyond good. And I am allowed to like you for more than just the physical, aren’t I? I like you, Lyric. I like what you’re about. Daring, fearless.”
She chuffed. If he only knew how desperately fearful she’d become.
“And the fact you trust me, a messed-up bloodsucker who thinks he’s a faery, is tremendous.”
“We’re all messed up. You just show it more. It isn’t every day a guy will let the big bad assassin kill his girl.”
“How long are you going to hold that against me?”
“Some time close to forever.”
“Good thing I have forever.”
She touched the corner of his eye where it sparkled. “How long do you think it would take you to get clean of dust?”
“Don’t know. Don’t care. Because it’s not going to happen.”
“Right.” Because he didn’t think he had a problem.
Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he did need the ichor to maintain. She hadn’t seen him acting high or out of sorts. Dust freaks could rage, act manic and paranoid if not given the high they craved. But seeing his blood all over his shirt now, glittering with ichor, was too much.
They were too different, yet, to be the hand-holding pair she hoped for.
“So what’s next?” she asked.
“I put a call in to a friend. He’s asking around about your mother’s deal with Zett. If the rumor mill is ablaze with me kidnapping you, it’s got to contain some spark about your mother’s deal. Said he’d call me back.”
Should she tell him what she knew? No, the time didn’t feel right. And she needed to make a call of her own. “So we’re going to sit in this dump until the phone rings?”
His thumb grazed her nipple beneath the thin T-shirt. “We can sit. Or lie down. Or you can sit and I can lie down. Or I can put you up against the wall, standing.”
“You have a one-track mind, vampire.”
“Don’t you want your new br
unette self to get laid? Baptism by orgasm?”
She tugged her hair into a ponytail and twisted it. “Sounds like a holy ritual I can get—”
“Bloody Herne!” Vail flew off the bed as if by magical force.
Arms raised behind her head with her hair in hand, Lyric twisted around to see the vampire pointing at her, mouth gaping and eyes wide. “What?” Oh, hell. She dropped her hair.
“You’ve a faery mark!”
* * *
HER DEEPEST, DARKEST SECRET had just been ripped wide open. One stupid moment of basking in Vail’s charming flirtations, and she’d let it slip.
All her life Lyric had been careful to never allow anyone to see the thin luminous mark, which swept behind the curve of her right ear. Always she wore her hair long and over her ears. Though she liked the way it looked pulled up, that hadn’t been an option since she was a teenager.
How could she have let down her guard?
You’re starting to trust him. You knew he would prove dangerous, you just didn’t know the danger would be to your heart.
The jig was up. And honestly, Lyric felt relief loosen her muscles. Tilting her head and stroking her hair back and aside, she displayed the faery mark for him to inspect.
Vail approached cautiously, but she sensed it was such a remarkable discovery he couldn’t be sure how to take it. He didn’t get close enough to touch, yet craned his neck to examine what looked like a finger had smeared a trail of bioluminescence on her skin. It was marked at the bottom with a fingerprint, Leo had told her, after he’d inspected his sister’s mark. Leo was the only one she’d ever dared tell.
“Whose mark?” Vail whispered. “And…how? Why? Faeries don’t…”
“Like vampires,” she finished for him in a quiet breath.
“We hate vampires,” he said. “I mean—”
“I know what you mean.”
She couldn’t expect him to side with her. He had decades of ingrained belief to overcome. And why should she expect him to change to please her?
“How’d you get it?” he asked. “From who?”